The Labryinth Chronicles
by Artemis J. Halk
Summary: Jareth, Sarah, and all of their friends, both Aboveground, Underground, and everything in between go on some wild, magical adventures and get into tons of mischief. Rated for some swear words and slightly inappropriate topics.
1. A Friendship Vow

So, the other day, I got to thinking: You know what would be awesome? A Labyrinth cartoon. Like a half-hour affair with one, maybe two new episodes twice a week.

And I couldn't get the idea out of my head.

And as I was thinking about it, I couldn't get the idea of the Beetlejuice cartoon out of my head, either. Does anybody remember that? That show was the best.

So this entire thing is supposed to be just little "episodes"; some of them will connect to the others, and some of the will be completely separate. It's just goofy, Labyrinth, Sarah, Jareth, Hoggle, Ludo, Didymus… and more! fun, and the first story takes place about two months after Sarah's trip through the Underground, and she's 16. This doesn't exactly have any set ending. Just read and enjoy, I guess.

* * *

><p>It was the perfect, early fall morning; the sun was shining, the birds were chirping, children rode their bikes on their way to school, and a sharp scream ripped through 4217 Pine Tree Drive.<p>

"Sarah!" Robert and Irene exclaimed in unison as they raced up the stairs to Sarah's room. They burst in only to find the teen pressed against the foot of her bed in a complete panic.

"Sarah!" Robert exclaimed as his eyes swept over where his daughter was looking; her dressing table. "What is it?" The Goblin King's face was in the mirror instead of a reflection of Sarah's room, but neither Sarah's father nor her step-mother seemed to be able to see him. Sarah's panic-stricken eyes darted from her parents to the mirror and back again. Jareth made a silent shushing gesture, and then motioned to the wooden surface of the table.

"It's a really big s-s-s-spider!" Sarah stammered out. She tried to get her erratic heartbeat under control again after the surprise of having the Goblin King pop up in her mirror as she was getting ready for school.

"Really Sarah?" Irene asked with an annoyed sigh. "I thought that you were mature enough to deal with things like this on your own. You're going to be a junior this year."

"Yikes, look at this fellow," Robert said as he moved the things around on Sarah's dressing table and uncovered a giant spider; it hadn't been there a moment ago.

"Eek! Get that thing away from me, Robert!"

"Now you know why I screamed, Irene!" Sarah called out as Irene ran from Sarah's bedroom with Robert chasing after his wife with the spider. Sarah stood and smoothed out her green plaid skirt before she slowly turned her attention back to the mirror. "What do you want?"

"Oh, come on, precious," Jareth said with a sly smile. "Is that any way to greet an old friend?"

"We met two months ago and we are not friends," Sarah said with a scowl as she crossed her arms over her chest with annoyance.

"Precious, you wound me with your words," Jareth said with a scowl that matched Sarah's. "You have time to spend with Hogfarts, but not for me?"

"Hoggle is my friend," Sarah pointed out sharply. She spun away from the mirror and started to pack her backpack for school. "You are not."

"Weeeeell…" Jareth started. He stretched the word out until Sarah turned back around to face him with a dry look. "You wouldn't happen to want to be my friend, would you, precious?"

"Are you nuts?" Sarah hissed to him. She dropped the notebook she was holding onto her bed and stalked closer to the mirror. "You kidnapped my baby brother and tried to kill me on multiple occasions!"

"Oh, please, Sarah," Jareth said and gave the teen a dry look. "I was only having a bit of fun. Both you and Toby were never in any real danger. Especially not Toby. I would have given him back. …Eventually."

"It's that 'eventually' that has me worried," Sarah said as she turned back to her bag. She roughly shoved the notebook in, zipped the bag up, and stalked back over to the mirror. "You and I… We're never going to be friends. Ever. Because you are a horrible person."

"Your words wound me, precious," Jareth said. But Sarah was already leaving the room. "Don't think that this conversation is over, Sarah Williams! …Because it's not! Over I mean! SARAH! Come back!" A look of complete panic came across the Goblin King's face. "Please?"

* * *

><p>Sarah vowed to put the Goblin King and his absurd request out of her mind. After all, it was the first day of school, and she was going into her next to last year of high school. Sure, she would occasionally talk with Hoggle, Ludo, and Sir Didymus, but not as frequently as Jareth had implied earlier.<p>

"Hey, Sarah! Long time no see!" It was Frankie, Sarah's closest friend at school.

"Frankie!" Sarah exclaimed, and hugged her friend. Then, she pulled away and picked up one of the cornrows that her friends thick, dark hair had been braided into. "I'm really digging this look."

"Thank you! My mom said that it was great of me to want to embrace my roots." Frankie looked over Sarah's shoulder and let out an annoyed groan. "Don't look now, but here comes Gabrielle." Despite Frankie's warning, Sarah looked over her shoulder anyway, and let out an annoyed groan, just like Frankie had done seconds earlier.

A baby blue limo pulled up to the curb of the school, and the driver got out, came around, and opened up the door. Not only did Gabrielle climb out, but so did Daphne and Una, Gabrielle's two best friends. It was a rare occasion when one was seen without the other.

"I can't believe that the school lets them get away with wearing their uniforms like that," Frankie said as the girls walked up the steps to the school.

"What I have an even harder time wrapping my mind around is why they would sex up their uniforms when we go to an all-girl's Catholic school," said another of Sarah's friends, Iskra.

"Yeah, that always sort of struck me as being a little unusual," Frankie said to the brunette. By this time, Gabrielle, flanked by Daphne on her right and Una on her left, had walked up the steps to the front of the school. The only thing that stood in the way of the three girls were Sarah, Frankie, and Iskra.

"Uh, move," Gabrielle said with a dismissive wave of her hand.

"As you wish, princess," Sarah said with a sneer as she and her friends moved away from the door and over to the low, brick rail of the little stoop. A little black and white chihuahua poked its head out from Gabrielle's Burberry bag. Gabrielle stopped in her tracks, which made Daphne and Una almost run into her.

"Excuse me?" Gabrielle said slowly as she turned around to face Sarah.

"Far be it from me to prevent the acting royal brat from entering her kingdom," Sarah said with a giant, fake smile plastered on her face.

"Sarah! What are you mad, girl?!" Frankie hissed to her friend. Gabrielle matched Sarah's fake smile with one of her own.

"I don't know who you think that you are, Williams, but I'm going to make your life a living hell," Gabrielle said; although the tone of her voice was sweet, her attitude made it have the sickly-sweet smell of garbage. She snapped her fingers, turned, and strode into the school, with her friends trailing after her.

"What have you done?" Iskra hissed as she rounded on Sarah. "You don't mess with the Queen Bee unless you want to get stung!"

"I don't even know why anybody likes her! Who around here hasn't heard some cruel rumor about themselves that Gabrielle started? Her friends must know that she's the one who started them!"

"There's a lot more to Gabrielle's position as the Queen Bee here than spreading nasty rumors," Frankie pointed out. "After all, if the only thing that she did was to spread rumors all day long, she really wouldn't have any friends." The bell for the start of school chimed, and the three of them headed inside.

"But either way, you're a marked woman now, Sarah," Iskra said. "I'd watch your back today." They all went their separate ways.

Sarah's first class this year was history. She walked in and saw that Sister Patrica had a seating chart drawn up on the old chalk board. Sarah was grateful to see that her seat was by the window— she'd be able to look outside and daydream her way through what was likely going to be a super boring class. Sarah walked through the rows of desks to her assigned seat, put her bag down on the floor next to her chair, and then sat down with a rather unpleasant squish.

"Whoops," said a cruel, overly sweet voice from the other side of the room. "Did we forget to mention that there was fresh paint on some of the chairs? Oh well. At least red is your color, Williams."

Sarah saw red and clenched her fists together in order to stop herself from jumping out of her seat. If she left now, before Sister Patrica took roll call, she'd be marked as absent from her first day of class. Not a good way to start the year at all.

The time seemed to crawl by as the elderly nun came in and started to drone on and on about the standards that the girls at St. Agnes Preparatory School for Girls had to live up to, as well as in her class.

Finally, the bell rang to dismiss from first period. Sarah jumped out of her seat and ran from the room like a bat out of hell. She ran to the nearest bathroom, only to find a rather disheartening "Closed for Cleaning" sign on the door. The overly cruel laugher of Gabrielle, Una, and Daphne as they sashayed past where Sarah stood fuming at the sign made Sarah grind her teeth together.

She turned and hurried upstairs to where her second period math class was, but instead of going into the class, Sarah instead ducked into the bathroom. There, she saw that there was bright red paint all over the back of her skirt. Gabrielle had clearly tried to make it look like Sarah had gotten period blood all over herself, but failed in regards to the tiny fact that blood was not fire-hydrant red.

"That doesn't look like it's going to come out anytime soon, precious," Jareth said from the bathroom mirror. "You should probably change. And I happen to have a beautiful dress that is just…" He held up a beautiful, emerald green dress, but Sarah spun away from the mirror and stalked out from the bathroom.

Thankfully, Sarah's math class was an advanced course class, and Gabrielle, Una, nor Daphne were in it. Nor were they in her drama class, or her advanced English class.

"Oh, good grief, girl!" Frankie exclaimed as soon as she got a glimpse of the giant paint stain on the seat of Sarah's skirt at lunch. "I told you not to go messing around with Gabrielle and her cronies! She's going to make your life a living hell for the rest of the year now!"

"I don't believe that," Sarah said as she got out her lunch from her bag. "After all, the school year is a long thing and she's likely to get bored with me after a while."

"No, no, I don't believe that at all," Iskra said from the other side of the table. "Gabrielle holds a grudge like nobody else. You know Olivia Lombard?"

"Yeah," Sarah said slowly.

"Olivia once took Gabrielle's Barbie doll in kindergarten because she wanted to play with it. Gabrielle had made Olivia a social outcast since then," Iskra explained.

"Is that why?" Frankie asked quickly. "I just thought that she really did like to eat the gum off the bottom of the desks. I didn't want to hang out with somebody like that. But now that you're telling me this, this sort of changes how I view her."

"Olivia's perfectly nice," Sarah said quickly. "And just because she did something that five-year-olds do frequently, that gives Gabrielle reason to turn her into a pariah? Even when we're in high school?"

"Hey, Gabrielle hasn't any new rumors about Olivia in years," Iskra was quick to point out. "But stuff like that… that's the sort of stuff that sticks with you for a while."

"Poor Olivia, though," Frankie said with a frown.

"Oh, come on. I think that we all know that there's a limit to what people will do for gum, and licking it off the bottom of the desks is that limit," Iskra snapped at the other girl. "Oh no, here comes trouble."

"Well well well, what do we have here girls?" Gabrielle said from directly behind Sarah. Gabrielle reached over Sarah and upturned the bottle of coke that she was carrying all over Sarah's lunch.

"What the hell?!" Sarah gasped as she jumped up, but her white uniform shirt had already been splashed with the brown soda.

"Whoops. I slipped," Gabrielle said before she turned and walked away; she and her three friends were giggling loudly. Sarah turned and ran the opposite way that Gabrielle had gone in, and she didn't stop until she was on the other side of the school. She ran into the bathroom and locked the door behind her.

"You know, if you were my friend, I wouldn't sit by and let those girls pour soda on you," Jareth said from the mirror. "You deserve much better treatment, precious." Sarah burst into tears.

"I can't take this anymore! If she stars a rumor that I eat gum off the bottom of the desks, I won't be able to face coming in to school for the next two years! I'll have to transfer to a public school, and then I'll never get into a good university!" She slid down the door until she was sitting on the floor.

"Sarah, I will make sure that Gabrielle has much bigger things on her mind than to be hurtful towards you," Jareth said.

"And all you're asking for is my friendship?" Sarah asked with a sniffle as she looked up at him. "What's the catch?"

"No catch, precious. I just want to be your friend. Pinky promises, slumber parties where we braid each other's hair and talk about the boys that we like, and we'll even exchange friendship bracelets if you like."

"I'm serious!" Sarah snapped at him.

"So am I!" Jareth snapped back.

"Why?" Sarah asked as she rubbed her nose with the back of her hand. "Why do you want to be my friend? Don't you have an entire kingdom of goblins who will be your friend?"

"I do, but do you know how stupid that goblins are?" Jareth asked with a roll of his eyes. "You're the only person that I've meet in a long time who I feel is my equal. I'd like to get to know you. And maybe try to make amends for the cruel things that I did to you two months ago."

"Well," Sarah said slowly as she got to her feet. "Maybe I could forget about how you sent the cleaners after me if Gabrielle got a little payback for what she did to me."

"It's a start. So, are we friends?" Jareth reached a hand out from the mirror and held out his pinky.

"Consider it a trial-run friendship," Sarah said as she approached his hand. "It's going to take a lot more for me to forget about how you kidnapped Toby, about how you almost sent me into the Bog, how you drugged me, about those cruel tricks that your goblins-"

"Okay, okay. A trial-run. And I'll make sure that Gabrielle has a taste of her own medicine," Jareth said quickly as he cut Sarah off. Sarah twisted her pinky around Jareth's for a brief moment, and a faint glow passed over the two of them.

"What was that?" Sarah asked sharply as she quickly pulled away.

"A vow," Jareth said as he withdrew his hand back through the mirror. "We'll be friends so long as I start to make amends for the things that I did to you. And if I break that vow, then I'll die."

"What?" Sarah asked sharply. She pressed her hands to the mirror but couldn't go through. "Why would you make a vow like that? I don't like you, Jareth, but I don't want for you to die!" Jareth threw back his head and let out a loud laugh.

"Oh, I'm just messing with you, precious," Jareth said after he'd calmed down a little bit. "If I break my vow, then I'll end up locked in an oubliette for a week. And if you break our vow by not being my friend, then it'll be you who ends up at the bottom of an oubliette." Sarah swallowed hard. "Oh, don't look at me like that, Sarah. Is being my friend really that vile?"

"Let me think about it and I'll get back to you," Sarah said sourly.

"Well, here," Jareth passed a sandwich through the mirror. "My first act as your friend."

"Thanks," Sarah said reluctantly.

"Oh, don't look at me like that; it's not poisoned or drugged. And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go make sure that Gabrielle gets what's coming to her." He vanished.

"Wait, Jareth!" Sarah called out, and the Goblin King quickly returned. "Please, nothing too mean, okay? I mean, the only thing that she did to me was that she put paint on my chair and dumped soda all over me and my lunch."

"Of course not, Sarah. I'm simply going to give her a simple reminder that what goes around comes around."

* * *

><p>Sarah reluctantly went to her sixth-period science class; Sarah wasn't in advanced science class, so she knew that she would likely end up having the class with one of Gabrielle's friends. She was on edge as she walked into the science room, and was waiting for something awful to happen.<p>

"Alright girls, let's get to our labs and start cracking! This ice isn't going to melt itself, you know!" Sister Beatrice exclaimed after she'd handed out the course guidelines. Sarah and her lab partner, Odette, started to get out the Bunsen burner and the beaker of ice that they would watch melt. It was literally the most boring lab experiment in the history of lab experiments, but they were being graded on the report that they would turn in at the end of the period.

"I still find it difficult to understand why Americans still insist on using Fahrenheit," Odette said as they carefully monitored the thermometer that sat in the beaker full of ice.

"Me neither," Sarah said with a sigh. "Metric is so much easier." A loud laugh on the other side of the room caught their attention, and they looked over to where Gabrielle and Daphne were joking around and generally not paying attention to their experiment. Sarah narrowed her eyes as Gabrielle pulled a tube of lipstick out from her bag and carefully reapplied it. Whatever punishment Jareth had planned for Gabrielle could not come soon enough.

That's when Sarah saw it. A goblin, no bigger than a field mouse, scurried across the room and over to the lab desk that Gabrielle and Daphne were not doing their experiment on. As the blue-grey creature scrambled up the wooden leg of the table, Sarah realized that she was the only one who could see the thing, and gave a sly smile to herself as she returned her attention back to her own experiment. Just the sight of the goblin was enough to make Sarah want to forgive Jareth for everything, even if the thing hadn't done anything yet.

Sarah waited with eager anticipation for something to happen. She and Odette took turns writing down the temperature and state of the contents of the beaker every two minutes, as instructed by the lab. When everybody's ice had turned to water, that's when it happened.

Gabrielle and Daphne started shrieking as loudly as possible, and then something glass shattered on the ground. "For the love of baby Jesus, girls!" Sister Beatrice snapped at them. "It's only water! And if you'd been paying more attention to your experiment rather than how you looked, then maybe this wouldn't have happened! Now, go get a broom and sweep that mess up!"

"But… But…" Gabrielle stammered. Sarah bit down on her lip and looked over to the two of them. Somehow, the goblin had managed to throw the water up into their faces, and their mascara was running badly.

"Unless you'd like to serve an hour of detention on your first day, I would suggest that you don't say another word, Ms. Ferriera!" Sister Beatrice snapped at Gabrielle. "Broom! NOW!" Gabrielle and Daphne marched reluctantly over to where the brooms were kept, and went back to clean up the broken beaker.

A couple of minutes later, the room was filled with an intense burning smell. "Ah, crap!" Sister Beatrice swore quickly a second before both the fire alarms and the fire sprinklers went off. This time, it wasn't only just Gabrielle and Daphne who where screaming from the water.

As Sarah hurried out from the science room, she found that she didn't mind getting wet. After all, some of Gabrielle's and Daphne's papers had… uh… mysteriously ended up on top of the super hot Bunsen burner and had caught on fire. And after causing the entire school to be shut down for the rest of the afternoon, there was no way that Gabrielle and Daphne would be getting away with just a strict warning.

As Sarah unlocked her bike to go home, something tugged on her sock, and she looked down to find that it was the tiny goblin from earlier. "Azar did good, Lady Sarah?"

"Azar did real good," Sarah said. "Tell Jareth that I'll be home in fifteen minutes okay?"

"Okay, Lady Sarah! Lady Sarah say Azar did real good!" the goblin yelled as he skipped away and then vanished on the spot. Sarah chuckled slightly to herself before she got on her bike and rode home. She walked through the back gate and came inside through the kitchen door.

"Sarah, what are you-" Irene started, but gasped loudly when she saw the state that her step-daughter was in. "Sarah! What happened?"

"Somebody left some papers on a Bunsen burner and it caught fire," Sarah said. "Also, I sat in some paint earlier," she said as she spun around. "Do you think that you could get it out?"

"I'll see what I can do about the paint. Strip off in the laundry room— I don't want you to drip all over the rest of the house!"

Sarah did as she was told, and left her school uniform for Irene to take care of later. Dressed in an old sweatshirt of her dads and some running shorts, Sarah dashed upstairs and quickly locked her bedroom door. "Jareth?"

"Ah, precious! Azar told me that you seemed to enjoy what he did."

"I did, even if I got a little wet in the process," Sarah said with a laugh.

"Well, I do have one more trick up my sleeve for Gabrielle," Jareth said.

"Jareth, what Azar did was plenty!" Sarah insisted. "Two things from her, two things done to her."

"Ah-ah-ah, nobody messes with my Sarah and gets away with it," Jareth said with a slight smirk.

* * *

><p>Meanwhile, the driver of Gabrielle's limo stood outside the vehicle and scratched his head in bewilderment. He had no idea how all four tires on the limo, plus the two in the trunk, had managed to become completely flat all at the same time.<p>

"What's taking so long?!" Gabrielle yelled from inside.

"I'm sorry, Ms. Ferriera, but the tires are all flat," the driver explained calmly. "We're going to just have to wait for a tow."

"Oh for goodness sakes! Can't you even-" Gabrielle opened the door to get out just at the same time as a large semi-truck drove by. The truck drove through a puddle, which threw the muddy water up onto Gabrielle. The blonde was already twice-drenched from school, and let out a scream of frustration as the dirty water hit her.

* * *

><p>Sarah and Jareth let out loud peals of laughter as they watched Gabrielle scream in frustration from Jareth's crystal. "Jareth, I think that this is the start of a beautiful friendship."<p> 


	2. The Ball

The songs mentioned in this are, of course, David Bowie's "Slow Burn" and "Where are We Now?". It seemed absurd to me to even consider any other artist.

I do not have a proof reader at the moment, so if there are any grammatical mistakes, I would appreciate it greatly if you could please tell me so that I might correct them. Thanks in advance. Thanks to Honoria Granger for pointing out a little Freudian mistake on my part.

* * *

><p>"Look Jareth, I'm more than happy to do small favors for you, but this goes above and beyond the call of duty," Sarah said from behind a dressing screen.<p>

"Please, Sarah. This is the only thing that I've asked of you since we made our vow," Jareth said on the other side. "You've asked so many favors of me, but this is the only thing that I have yet to ask of you."

"This is huge, though! And I'm not quite sure that I'm completely comfortable doing this for you."

"It's just a ball, Sarah. Are you afraid of some dancing?" Jareth asked teasingly. Sarah poked her head around the edge of the screen.

"With you? Yes." She pulled back her head. "This is absurd. I'm not wearing this."

"Come on, it's not that bad," Jareth pleaded.

"Yes it is!" Sarah protested loudly.

"Come on. Just come out and I promise that I won't laugh at you, precious," Jareth said.

"Fine," Sarah agreed with an annoyed sigh. She picked up her skirts and came out from around the dressing screen. The dress was a rich, blue velvet with strands of silver woven into the cloth that caught the light every which way that she turned. The bodice of the dress had silver embroidery done of twisting spirals. The skirt was exceptionally full and fell to the floor in massive billows of blue velvet. The overly puffy sleeves made Sarah's shoulders look about twice as large as they normally did.

Jareth snorted loudly. "You promised that you wouldn't laugh, you jerk!" she yelled and punched him roughly on the arm.

"Okay, stand here," Jareth said and pulled Sarah in front of the three-paneled mirror next to the dressing screen. "All of this fabric needs to come away," Jareth said and ran his hands down the overly-large skirt. Blue fabric came away as if Jareth was peeling fruit, and when he stepped back, the skirt of Sarah's dress was more stream-lined and manageable. "Go away with this, too," Jareth said as he tugged the sleeves of Sarah's dress off completely, which turned the gown strapless. Jareth considered the dress for a second. "Okay, no, sleeves would be okay." He pressed some of the excess fabric back onto Sarah's shoulders, but when he pulled his hands away, all that was left were form-fitting sleeves. "And a little bit of… this…" Jareth twirled both of his index fingers over the plain fabric that now made up Sarah's sleeves, and swirling, silver embroidery that matched the bodice appeared.

"Put some on the hem of the skirt, too," Sarah said quickly as a smile slowly appeared on her face.

"As you wish, precious," Jareth said. He bent down and twirled his fingers lazily around the hem of the skirt, and silver embroidery appeared there, too. Jareth stood and spun Sarah around so that he could get a good look at her. "This is a dress fit for a queen," he told her gently.

"Shut up," Sarah said, her face red. She punched him in the arm again.

"Ow! What was that for?" Jareth gasped as he rubbed his injured arm.

"That was for laughing when you said that you woulnd't!" Sarah quickly punched him in the arm two more times. "And that was for making me put on that stupid dress in the first place when you could have easily done all of those adjustments without me putting it on!"

"Ahaha, you caught me, precious! I only wanted to see you in that frothy dress. It will serve to amuse me later tonight when we're both bored out of our minds."

* * *

><p>"Okay, so what's this ball really about?" Sarah said as she and Jareth walked around the duck pond in Jareth's garden. Sarah absently pulled off the crusts on the sandwich she had and tossed them to the ducks, who happily gobbled the bread up. "Fae don't really celebrate arbitrary dates like this, do they?"<p>

"No, October 5th is just some arbitrary date that Makili picked out. This ball is an attempt to upstage a ball that another Fae had last month. That's what Fae do, precious— we don't talk to each other for like… five years, and then when we do see each other, we're all clamoring over one another to upstage one another."

"That honestly sounds like such a massive headache. I don't know how you can stand to be around people like that," Sarah said with a roll of her eyes.

"Oh precious," Jareth said with an annoyed sigh. "Did you forget who you're speaking with?" Sarah looked hesitantly over to Jareth, who quickly doused the girl in a shower of glitter. She coughed as the tiny fragments entered her nose and mouth, and then looked sadly at her lunch, which was now quite sparkly.

"For one moment, it was easy for me to pretend like you're a normal human guy that just happens to live in a castle full of goblins," Sarah said as she handed Jareth her ruined sandwich. Jareth twisted his hand around and the sandwich was transformed into two green apples, one of which he handed to Sarah. "You'd think that I'd know better than to accept fruit from you, Jareth," Sarah said as she took the offered fruit.

"And you'd think that I would have learned my lesson not to try and drug my best friend," Jareth said with a frown. "Here." He took the apple from Sarah and bit into it before he handed it back.

"Thanks. Now I have Fae spit all over my apple," Sarah said dryly, but took a bite over where Jareth had bit anyway. "Why don't you ever throw upstaging balls, Jar?"

"I have. In the past. I haven't… er… I haven't felt the need to throw any recently."

"Is this because you have a human girl to parade around as your date?" Sarah asked slyly.

"No, of course not!" Jareth said quickly. "It's because I'm more mature than the rest of my Fae relatives and…" Jareth trailed off when he saw the sly look Sarah was giving him. "They are going to be completely jealous when I show up with the prettiest human on my arm!"

"As long as no Fae gets it into their heads to try and befriend Gabrielle Ferriera, I think that I'll be okay with attending your stupid balls, Jareth," Sarah said and took another bite out of her apple. "But if you even think so much as to put me into another frothy dress ever again, our entire deal is off!"

"Fine, fine! No more frothy dresses," Jareth said with a roll of his eyes. "But it was funny."

"I looked like I was wearing a circus tent!" Sarah agreed with a giggle.

* * *

><p>Sarah was so completely bored out of her mind. If one more Fae expressed their delight in Jareth's coming to the ball, Sarah would probably take a relish fork and shove it up their smarmey, little throats. And they'd only just arrived less than fifteen minutes ago.<p>

Jareth stood a couple of paces away from Sarah and was talking to an exceptionally tall man about something. All Sarah knew was that it was something about the national treasury, but they might as well have been saying "Blah-blah-blah" over and over. Sarah grabbed a champagne flute from the tray of a passing waiter, but was mildly disappointed to find out that it was only sparkling water instead of something stronger. But then again, Fae were strange creatures, as Sarah had come to find out with her friendship with Jareth, so maybe Fae got a buzz or something from drinking sparkling water.

"Hello, my dear," said a soft voice on Sarah's left. She looked over and saw a beautiful, red-headed woman who wore what basically looked like rainbow-colored clouds as a dress. It was completely see-through, although most people didn't seem overly interested in staring at the woman's body. Sarah blushed and tried to focus on the woman's face. Like every other Fae, she was exceptionally beautiful, with tiny, delicate features and bright, blue eyes.

"H-hello," Sarah stammered and tried to focus on the woman's blue eyes.

"I don't think that I've ever seen you around any Fae balls before," the woman said. Her voice was like listening to delicate wind chimes; it was completely absurd how literally everything about the woman was so very beautiful. "Did you marry a Lord?"

"Um, no, I'm not married," Sarah stammered out.

"Oh, then you're being courted by a Lord, then?"

"Ah, Princess Arhah, I see that you've met my date, Sarah," Jareth said as he wrapped a possessive arm around Sarah's waist. Arhah's eyes widened, and then she smiled gracefully at the two of them.

"Ah, so you're the human that Jareth's been cavorting with," she said in the same, even voice as she had used a moment earlier. "It is very nice to meet you, Sarah. Jareth, while I have your attention, I wanted to talk to you about the…" Sarah stopped paying attention. Business and Underground economics. Sarah could barely stay awake during her own economy classes, and it was doubly boring to listen to Fae royalty talking about it.

"Hey, precious, remember how I told you that I needed something funny for later?" Jareth whispered in Sarah's ear while Arhah prattled on and on, seemingly without end.

"Yeah?"

"It's later," Jareth said with a smirk.

"That dress was so frothy!" Sarah whispered with a giggle. "You could have hidden your entire castle under it!"

"Well maybe half," Jareth agreed with a laugh. Everybody turned to the small stage on the other side of the room as the orchestra finished up a moderate-paced waltz and politely clapped for the performers before the orchestra started to play a fox-trot.

"But anyway, where was I?" Arhah started, which drew Jareth's and Sarah's attention back to the ginger.

"I honestly stopped paying attention as soon as you said 'decreased revenues', my dear," Jareth said with a slight smirk. "If you will excuse me, I brought Sarah here so that we could dance and enjoy ourselves, and we have yet to do either this evening." Jareth offered Sarah his hand, which she accepted, and he lead her over to the dance floor.

"Are we having fun yet?" Sarah asked dryly as Jareth attempted to lead her into the fast-pace dance of which Sarah didn't know the steps. Jareth winced as Sarah painfully stepped on his toes.

"I thought that you were having fun? I mean, who wouldn't have fun listening to Princess Arhah talk for two minutes about the economy?" They looked at each other with very serious looks, and then burst out laughing. Jareth stopped trying to dance after Sarah stepped on his toes again.

"Excuse me," said a rather large lady as she bumped into Jareth.

"Watch it, we're standing here," Jareth complained loudly. "Sheesh, some people." He ushered Sarah off the dance floor so that they wouldn't get bumped into again.

"You wanna know what would make this party better?" Sarah asked once they were out of the way of the dancers.

"Booze?"

"What? The sparkling water isn't doing it for you?" Sarah asked with a giggle. Jareth gave her a "bitch please" look, and Sarah cleared her throat. "If the music was better. More upbeat. You should go up onto the stage and sing."

"I couldn't," Jareth said, although a large, sly smile quickly appeared on his face.

"You could and you will. Right now!"

"I can't just crash Makili's party and start singing," Jareth said as his smile grew. Several of the Fae nearby edged away from the clearly deranged Goblin King. "After all, he might never invite me to one of his stuffy, boring balls ever again. In fact, nobody here in attendance might never invite me to one of their balls ever again, either." Sarah could only chuckle and shake her head.

Jareth conjured up an electric guitar as he stormed towards the stage. He quickly jumped up onto the little platform and the orchestra cut off at once. Everybody stopped dancing and the hall was filled with the harsh whispers of everybody as the questioned what the eccentric Goblin King was up to.

"Your playing sucks, your violins can't keep beat to save their lives, and your singular bass player is so horribly out of tune it makes me want to stuff crab puffs into my ears just to escape the horrible sound," Jareth told the orchestra.

"Oh my!" gasped the same over-weight lady who'd bumped into Jareth moments earlier. Jareth turned back around to face the hall and started to play on the guitar. Even though there wasn't even any sort of percussion equipment up on the stage, the sounds of somebody playing a drum-set started to play as well.

"Here shall we live in this terrible town. Where the price for our minds shall squeeze them tight like a fist," Jareth started to sing. Everybody just sort of stood around, gaping at the Goblin King. Jareth stopped playing and the hall went completely silent. "Well? Dance!" Sarah pushed her way towards the stage and stared to move in time to the beat of the song. Jareth started to play again. "Like a slow burn, leading us on and on and on."

Some of the younger Fae stepped forward and started to try and mimic the moves that Sarah was making. Sarah grabbed a girl and spun her around when Jareth sang "Spinning us round and round and round".

* * *

><p>Sarah sunk down onto a chair and fanned her red, sweaty face with her hand. "Punch?" Jareth asked, and offered her a cup. Sarah gratefully took the drink and finished it in a couple of gulps. Jareth refilled the cup for her, and then sat down in the chair next to Sarah's.<p>

"I haven't had this much fun at a dance in… well… ever," Sarah said as she swirled the red liquid around in the cup. "School dances are so boring. All of the chaperons always interrupt the music to yell at us to 'Save room for Jesus!' It makes it exceptionally difficult to enjoy a song if it's interrupted twice before its over." She rolled her eyes.

"We don't have Jesus in the Underground," Jareth pointed out simply.

"I know that, but I'm sure that you must have your own religion."

"We do," Jareth agreed. "But he doesn't enjoy jumping between two young people who might be dancing a little bit too close together." Sarah laughed a little at that. Jareth stood and offered Sarah his hand. "I don't believe that we ever got our dance."

"We did dance."

"No, we stumbled around on the dance floor for about a minute and I think that you broke my toes," Jareth said dryly.

"And anyway, how are we supposed to dance when the singer walked off the stage?" Sarah asked. With a snap of Jareth's fingers, the lights dimmed and music started to play.

Sarah looked up at Jareth with some confusion as his voice started to drift around them. "What? I can record my music, too," Jareth said with some arrogance. The others looked to Sarah and Jareth to see what they were doing, and then joined the dance floor with their partners and they slowly swayed back and forth in time to the easy guitar beat.

"Where are we now? Where are we now? The moment you know, you know, you know," Jareth's recoded voice crooned.

"You know, maybe if you'd tried harder to be this Jareth instead of some fierce Goblin King who kidnaps babies, I probably would have liked you a lot more," Sarah said.

"I was trying to be myself at the ball," Jareth said with a pout. "But I think that I scared you off with my love song, precious." Sarah looked up at Jareth; her eyes glistened in the dim lights of the ball room.

"Jareth?"

"Yes, precious?"

"We're not saving room for Jesus."

Jareth stopped moving; he threw his head back and laughed loudly.

* * *

><p>Sarah let out a low groan of protest as her step-mother threw the curtains open in Sarah's room. "Good morning, dear! We tried to wait up for you, but I guess that we nodded off and didn't hear you come in," Irene said. "How was the Cotillion Ball?"<p>

"It was… something, that's for sure," Sarah said, her voice muffled against her pillow.

"I wasn't even aware that you were interested in Debutante Balls, Sarah," Irene went on. "I should tell you about my own."

"Irene, it's like 9 AM and I didn't even leave the party until well after 2," Sarah groaned.

"Right, right," Irene said. "Well, your father and I didn't want for you to sleep all day long, young lady, which is why I woke you up. Come downstairs for breakfast after your shower, and I can tell you some of my own stories." Irene left the teen's bedroom, and Sarah dragged herself out of bed and into the bathroom.

After a shower, she felt much more awake. Sarah sat in front of her vanity as she brushed her hair out— giant flakes of glitter fell out from her hair, which annoyed Sarah to no end.

"Good morning, precious," Jareth said cheerfully from the other side of the mirror.

"Jareth, you and I have to have a nice, long chat about your insane obsession over glitter," Sarah said as she brushed the glitter that was all over her vanity into the waste basket.

"Well, I have some good news for you, Sarah," Jareth said as a sly grin crept across his face.

"Oh yeah? What?"

"Guess."

"I'm not…" Sarah trailed off and shook her head absently.

"Despite my predictions that singing at the ball last night would land me on the 'permanently banned from attending any balls EVER' list, Makili has already written to me to tell me how much fun everybody had at the ball last night. And Makili was only just the first of many letters that I've received— am still receiving— about asking me to preform at their own balls."

"Are you going to do it?" Sarah asked.

"No, of course not. I have… goblin noses to wipe. I can't possibly find the time out of my busy schedule to sing at literally everybody's balls. They'll just have to find some other means of Aboveground party entertainment."

"Kinga! Kinga!" a goblin exclaimed and ran into the frame along with Jareth. "My nose is running!"

"Get your disgusting goblin snot away from me, you creaton," Jareth snarled. He drop-kicked the poor creature out from the frame. Jareth adjusted his gloves and turned his attention back to Sarah. "But, precious?"

"Yes?"

"I'll gladly sing for you any time."


	3. Babysitting Toby

I had entirely too much fun writing this chapter, which I suppose is the entire point of this "experiment" of mine in the first place...

As before, please let me know if there are any grammatical mistakes so that I might fix them.

* * *

><p>It was a beautiful, early fall day Underground, and as Jareth pressed his face against the other side of Sarah's mirror, he could also tell that it was just as nice Aboveground. Jareth pressed himself into the glass further, only this time, it gave way and he stepped out onto Sarah's vanity. He was careful not to knock over Sarah's things as he stepped down and then he casually strode from her room.<p>

"Sarah! It's a very nice day today! Will you come and be my Queen in a living chess set match against Princess Arhah?" Jareth called out as he walked down the stairs as if he owned the house.

"Jareth!" Sarah hissed when he stepped around the corner and into the living room. "Don't just come into my house like that! What if my parents were home!"

"But they're not, so there's no problem, precious," Jareth was quick to point out.

"But what if they were?"

"Precious, we will be here all day long if you keep arguing like that. It's too nice to be stuck inside; come Underground with me."

"I can't," Sarah said as she turned back into the living room. "My parents went to a party and left me to watch Toby." Jareth paused in the doorway and watched as Sarah picked up her baby brother.

"Jar-jar," Toby exclaimed, his chubby arms out-stretched and grasping for the Goblin King.

"Look, he remembers me!" Jareth said with a shit-eating grin on his face.

"Of course he remembers you; you spent several hours with him while you tortured me," Sarah said with a scowl.

"I did not torture you, precious," Jareth snapped. "I was merely testing you to see if you would make a good companion for me." Sarah sneered at Jareth for a moment before she turned away and carried Toby into the kitchen. Jareth was quick to follow them. "But that's not my point! Please bring Toby to the Underground and spend the day with me!"

"I don't know, Jareth… The last time Toby was there wasn't exactly a good time for any of us."

"Oh, come on, precious! I returned Toby and he was perfectly fine, was he not?" Jareth asked.

"Um, I guess so…"

"And you've been to the Underground plenty of times since with me, and I didn't try to hurt or trick you, right?"

"No," Sarah said hesitantly. "I'm just not sure that bringing Toby to the world's worst babysitter's is really the best idea."

"Sarah, you wound me. What happened to our friendship vow?"

"That vow does not extend to Toby, and you know it," Sarah snapped at Jareth.

"Well," Jareth said, and drew the word out for a while. His mismatched eyes flitted to the toddler in his sister's arms. "Maybe we should ask Toby what he wants."

"Honestly, Jareth, you're grasping at straws now," Sarah said with a roll of her eyes as she bounced her baby brother in her arms. "Toby's not even two yet. He'd like you if you even once made a silly face at him."

"Well, what have you, Master Toby?" Jareth asked as he stepped closer to the pair and bent down so that he was at eye level with the baby. "Do you want for Sarah to take you to the Goblin Kingdom to visit uncle Jareth?"

"Dance dance," Toby said quite clearly. Sarah's jaw dropped and she gave the Goblin King an aghast look.

"Jareth!" she roared. "What did you do to my brother?"

"Whoops, can't hear you, precious! I'm going back to my own kingdom!" Jareth yelled as he started to run back up the stairs.

"Jareth! Get back here you louse!" Sarah yelled as she ran after the Goblin King with Toby still in her arms. Sarah entered her bedroom just in time to see the surface of the mirror on her vanity ripple like water, and she dove in after Jareth, Toby and all.

The portal dumped Sarah and Toby in the middle of Jareth's throne room, right on top of a chicken. "Lady Sarah's back!" several goblins cheered in unison.

"She brought Master Toby back, too!" a goblin pointed out, and this was met with gleeful cheers.

"Lady Sarah! Lady Sarah! Come play with us!"

"Hold on, would you? I have to go strangle the Goblin King before he can get away!" Sarah exclaimed. "But I can't just drag Toby all over the Goblin Kingdom again."

"We'll watch him! We'll watch him!" the goblins exclaimed all in unison.

"You must think that I'm a special kind of stupid, then," Sarah said with a scowl as she pulled herself up to her full height. There was a dangerous glint in her eyes, and the goblins nearest to her cowered away from her, afraid to even let Sarah's shadow touch them.

"Now now, precious!" Jareth said with a laugh from the doorway into the throne room. "I told you that you should throw your weight around with my subjects, but I didn't mean to scare them so badly that they piss themselves. After all, the room smells bad enough without adding goblin piss to the mixture."

"I don't know what you did to Toby, but-"

"And what exactly makes you think that I did anything to Toby?" Jareth interrupted Sarah coolly. "I only asked him what he wanted to do. Nothing more. You were standing right there, and would have felt if I'd attempted to cast a spell over your brother."

"But what does 'dance dance' mean?" Sarah asked, the anger fading from her a little.

"Put Toby down here, and I'll show you," Jareth instructed, and pointed to the edge of the small pit that was in the middle of the room. Sarah gave the Goblin King an uneasy look, but did as he'd asked of her. Jareth considered the toddler in front of him. "You remind me of the babe."

"What babe?" several goblins asked in unison.

"The babe with the power," Jareth said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"What power?" the goblins asked, again in unison.

"The power of voodoo!"

"Who do?"

"You do!"

"I do what?"

Sarah was caught up in the hypnotic dance moves that Jareth was making, with the chorus of his bumbling citizens. Jareth went to fetch Toby from the edge of the pit. "Dance magic dance, jump mag- Where is Toby?!"

"Toby?" Sarah asked with some confusion. She shook her head to break herself away from the spell that Jareth had woven with his dancing. She didn't see the toddler anywhere in the throne room. "TOBY?!" Sarah rounded on the Goblin King. "We haven't even been here for five minutes, and we've still somehow managed to lose my baby brother!"

"Calm down, Sarah! There's only so many places that Toby could get off to!" Jareth told her. "We'll find him!"

Sarah roughly grabbed Jareth's cravat and dragged him down so that he was at eye-level with her. "We'd better find him, or else our vow is null and void."

Jareth swallowed hard, and nodded quickly. "We'll find him, precious. Don't worry." Sarah released him, and Jareth stood up straight and fixed his cravat. "You lot! Go search the gardens and stables! You, search the basements! You, search the kitchens and staff rooms!" There was a moment of awkward silence. "Well? GO!"

The goblins scrambled around to do as they were told, but many were confused as to which group that they had been indicated in, and several goblins ran into each other in the confusion.

"Come on, Sarah, we're going to go search the towers and my personal chambers," Jareth said and tugged Sarah out of the throne room. After they'd left the goblins behind, the two of them separated so that they could cover more ground.

Sarah's footsteps echoed overly loud in an empty hallway. She looked behind her and realized that she had no idea where Jareth was, or even if she could be able to get back to the throne room. But, in the still silence of the castle, came a child's giggle. "TOBY!" Sarah exclaimed and threw open the door on her right, where the sound had come from.

For some reason, Sarah had been expecting the Escher room, but this room was even more unexpected. It was nothing but an endless, navy void, but strange, seemingly endless creatures that looked like children's drawings of snakes come to life slithered past in every which way.

And, at the far end of the room, riding on the back of one such conveyor-belt creature, was Toby. "Toby!" Sarah screamed. She leapt from the doorway and sailed effortlessly through the abyss before she landed on the back of a black and white striped creature. The quick movement startled Sarah and she almost lost her balance for a brief moment. "Toby, wait for me! I'm coming to get you!"

The toddler, meanwhile, was crawling away from his sister, and was being carried further and further away from her by the creature that he was riding on.

* * *

><p>"Toby?" Jareth asked as he threw open the door to one of his million guest chambers. Upon seeing that the inch-thick dust was completely undisturbed in the room, Jareth slammed the door shut and ran across the hall to the next door. "Toby?"<p>

Instead of finding the typical guest suite, beyond the door was a bathroom. A cow stood under the shower head with a floral shower cap stretched over her ears, and was scrubbing her back with a long-handled scrub. "EEEEK!" the cow screamed when she realized that she had company in her bathroom. She quickly hid herself behind the semi-transparent shower curtain.

"Whoops, pardon me!" Jareth said, and mostly closed the bathroom door. "I'm so sorry to barge in on you, but have you seen a human baby? About two years old? Wearing a green romper?"

"No, I have not!" the cow bellowed. "Now get out!" She threw her scrub at the door, and Jareth closed it just in time. He leaned against the door for a second to gather himself, and then he turned his attention back to the door.

"Interdimensional rift to the Cow Queen's Bathroom; Do Not Open Under Any Circumstances," Jareth wrote on a sign, which he put on the door before he moved on to the next one.

* * *

><p>Sarah had somehow managed to get across the other side of the strange room by jumping from the backs of the creatures. After she'd jumped onto the last one, she saw that there was a doorway on that side of the room, too. Sarah looked behind her and saw the door that she'd come through, and as she scanned the rest of the room, she couldn't find Toby anywhere. She had no idea where he might have gotten to— there had been a couple of close calls where she wasn't quite sure that she would have made it to the next snake, and somewhere during one of those times, Toby had vanished.<p>

Sarah jumped from the back of the last snake and sailed across the empty void and landed neatly in the other doorway. She brushed herself off, fixed her hair, and then opened the door.

What lay in the room beyond was even more surprising than the snake void room had been. Because the room beyond was occupied by at least a dozen sheep, all dressed like formal, Victorian gentlemen.

"My my, good fellow, what have we here?" the sheep closest to Sarah asked. It adjusted its monocle to get a better look at Sarah.

"I'm so sorry, but have you seen a human baby come through here? Wearing a green romper?" Sarah asked.

"I don't believe that we have," said another sheep. "How about you, Edward?"

"Nope, you're the first human that we've seen in… Gosh? Is that the time?" The sheep looked over to the grandfather clock in the corner. All of the sheep abruptly stood, ripped their clothes off, and pushed the furniture out of the way. Underneath the chairs and solid tables there was grass, instead of more carpet, and the sheep got down on all fours and started to graze.

"Um, okay. Thanks for your… I'm just…" Sarah made for the door on the other side of the room. As she grasped the cool, crystal doorknob in her hand, she sent out a silent prayer that whatever was on the other side of the door would be something more sane than the past two rooms.

Then, Sarah threw the door open and stumbled out in the throne room. Sarah looked back in confusion, but the door that she would have just come through was now solid, grey stone, just like everything else in the castle.

* * *

><p>Sarah's frustrated scream seemed to echo throughout the entire Goblin Kingdom. Surprised and worried for his friend, Jareth quickly transported himself to where she was in the throne room.<p>

Sarah blinked in confusion at the sight that the Goblin King presented to her. He wore a grass skirt, coconut bra, and several leis around his neck. "Where the hell have you been?" Sarah demanded of Jareth.

"Where have I been? Sarah, you're tracking grass all over my throne room!" Jareth exclaimed. With a snap of his fingers, Jareth was once again dressed like he had been earlier.

Sarah looked down and saw that she had indeed left a trail of grass from the wall over to where she now stood, and her sneakers were stained with grass. "I was only in there for a few minutes!" Sarah protested with a pout. "I saw Toby in a weird room with these long snake things and I think that I was in space but-"

"Are you kidding? I saw Toby in the middle of a luah!" Jareth yelled.

"Why does your castle have so many weird portals into other universes?!" Sarah yelled at him.

"I don't know! I only inherited the castle! I only know like maybe 1/8th of the castle!"

"Why?!"

"Um, excuse me, your majesty?" a goblin said timidly at their feet.

"WHAT?!" Jareth and Sarah yelled at the goblin in unison, who shrunk back in fright.

"Sir Ludo is here to see you."

"Great, just great," Jareth said as he rubbed his temples. "Just what we need is a moronic rock summoner."

"Ludo is not moronic! He is special and a much better friend than you'll ever be!" Sarah yelled at Jareth.

The doors burst open and Ludo charged into the room. "Sarah!" Ludo exclaimed. "Made new friend!" Both Jareth's and Sarah's jaws dropped at the sight of the sleeping toddler cradled carefully in Ludo's arms.

"Oh my gosh, Ludo!" Sarah exclaimed as she rushed towards her friend. "Where did you find him?"

"In Labyrinth," Ludo explained. "He lost child. Goblins say to take to King. King know what to do." Sarah quickly snatched her baby brother out from Ludo's arms and checked him over, only to find not even a particle of dust on him.

"Oh my gosh, Toby," Sarah said as she cuddled Toby to her chest. "I don't know what I can do to ever repay you, Ludo. We've been looking everywhere for him."

"No problem, Sarah. Sarah, friend!"

"And as for you, Jareth…" Sarah said as she rounded on the Goblin King. The Goblin King gave Sarah a completely horrified look before he turned tail and ran.

* * *

><p>"Hey, kiddo," Robert said as he and Irene came home. It was dark out, and Sarah was camped out in front of the TV with a box of pizza in front of her on the coffee table. "How was Toby?"<p>

"He was a little angel, like always," Sarah said without taking her eyes off from the TV. Irene went upstairs to check on Toby, and Robert went into the kitchen.

"Sarah?" Irene called from downstairs. "Why is Toby completely covered in glitter? Oh gosh, it's even in his diaper, too!"

Sarah's eyed went wide and then furrowed with anger. "Jareth, you and I are going to have to renegotiate our vow," Sarah mumbled under her breath as she started up the stairs to her room.


	4. Fall Festival

Songs are, of course, from the Sound of Music.

Once again, this has not been proof read, so let me know if you spot any mistakes! Thanks to a guest for pointing out a tiny little typo on my part.

* * *

><p>Jareth appeared over Sarah's shoulder and looked with interest at the cans of paint that she'd carried out from the garage. Sarah set the paint down next to large reams of white paper, and then looked absently down at the paper as she pulled a pencil out from her hair.<p>

"What are you doing, precious?" Jareth asked; his voice made Sarah jump and the pencil clattered to the ground.

"Jesus, Jareth! How many times do I have to tell you to not sneak up on me like that?!" Sarah snapped at the Goblin King as she bent to retrieve her pencil.

"Only about a thousand, I'll imagine," Jareth said with a playful smirk. "I answered your question, rhetorical as it might have been, so now you have to answer mine."

"Every spring and fall, St. Agnes puts on a festival and opens it up to the public so that we can raise money."

"Raise money?" Jareth asked with a cocked eyebrow. "Do your parents not shell out over five grand a year to keep you in the school? What in the world is the school spending all of that money on?"

"The school is pricey, but it's never enough money," Sarah said. "But the festival is also a way to show the neighborhood what it is that the girls of St. Agnes have been up to recently. Since I'm in the drama club, I've been tasked to make some banners that we'll hang up to advertise coming inside the auditorium to see the various plays that we'll be putting on throughout the day."

"Can I help?" Jareth asked with a hopeful grin.

"I can't possibly see how you could mess up writing a simple message on some paper, so…" Sarah pulled out the other pencil from her hair, and her dark locks tumbled down around her shoulders. Jareth conjured up a scrunchie for the girl, who quickly tied her hair back, and then fished a folder out from her bag. "Work on this banner, and it needs to say this," Sarah said as she handed Jareth a piece of paper.

* * *

><p>"It's a fine poster, Ms. Williams, but don't you think that you overdid it a little with the glitter?" Sister Mary asked. Sarah and one of her drama club classmates were hanging the banner over the entrance to the auditorium.<p>

"Ah, actually, my friend helped me make like half of the banners," Sarah explained.

"Sarah Williams has friends?" Gabrielle said as she walked past where Sarah was up on the ladder. Gabrielle let out a loud snort. "I'll believe it when I see it!" She walked away laughing.

"Don't listen to Ms. Ferriera, Sarah," Sister Mary said gently. "Your friend has a wonderful eye, if not a rather… unusual love for glitter. When you see her again, please be sure to thank her for all of her hard work."

"Um, yeah," Sarah said as she climbed down from the ladder. She looked at her hands and saw that they were covered in glitter. "I'll be sure to do that."

* * *

><p>"There is no way that I'm going to let Gabrielle get away with saying something like that!" Jareth growled later that afternoon when Sarah had told him about what had happened during school. "My banners were completely awesome! And I held back on the usage of glitter, you know!"<p>

"If that's you 'holding back', I'm almost afraid to see what they would have looked like if you hadn't," Sarah said rather hesitantly.

"I should have been more cruel towards her on your first day of school, precious," Jareth said.

"She only put wet paint on the seat of my chair and poured soda on my sandwich!" Sarah exclaimed.

"I know! I remember!"

"But you got not only her but Daphne into real big trouble with not only the school but the fire department! It went above and beyond paying her back for what she did to me."

"No, it did not! Nobody messes with my Sarah and gets away with it!" Jareth growled. "If Gabrielle was in my kingdom, she would still be sitting at the bottom of an oubliette!"

"Well, she's not in your kingdom, she's in mine! And if I tell you that she more than got what she deserved for what she did to me, then you have to let it go!"

"Precious…"

"Jareth!" Sarah warned, her voice low. Jareth gave Sarah a baleful look.

"Sarah, the woman insulted your honor, as well as my artistic abilities," Jareth said, his voice gentle. "And I think that we both agree that Ms. Ferriera needs to be brought down a peg or two."

Sarah considered what Jareth had said for a moment. "Yes, I do think that Gabrielle and her friends need to taste their own medicine. But I also don't want for a goblin to do it, because even though I'm sure that Azar had the best intentions when he put those papers on the Bunsen burner, somebody could have gotten seriously hurt."

"Alright," Jareth agreed slowly. "It's a good thing that St. Agnes's fall festival is open to everybody, because Jared King is going to come and visit his American cousin, Sarah Williams."

"Jared King? Seriously?" Sarah deadpanned.

"What? Do you have a problem with the name?"

"Isn't it a bit…" Sarah giggled. "I don't know? Obvious?"

"If you have a better suggestion, I'm all ears, precious," Jareth said dryly. Sarah held up her hands in a gesture of surrender. "That's what I thought."

* * *

><p>The day of the festival dawned exceptionally sunny, with just a hint of a fall chill in the air. Sarah mechanically dressed in her school uniform, but packed up the costume that she'd put on later during the play.<p>

"It doesn't exactly seem fair that you'd have to go to a festival during your own free time but have to wear your uniform," Jareth said as he leaned casually against Sarah's vanity.

"Jareth!" Sarah gasped as she clutched her chest. "How many times do I have to tell you not to do that?!"

"Only a thousand and one, precious. Do you approve?" Jareth asked as he held his arms out. He wore a form-fitting, light blue button-down shirt; worn, white-washed jeans; and dirty sneakers. Sarah blushed as she quickly turned away from him.

"It's nice," she said as she gathered her costume jewelry into a bag. "But you've got to do something with your hair. Nobody has hair like that, Jar."

"Sarah?" Irene called from downstairs. "Are you almost ready?"

"Yeah, Irene!" Sarah replied. "I'll be down in a minute."

"You're going with your family? Precious, I'm wounded; I thought that we could go over together," Jareth said with a pout. Sarah looked over her shoulder and saw a teasing twinkle in his eyes, and gave him an annoyed look.

"I'm going over with my parents, but they'll probably want to look around. I know all of the booths and clubs like the back of my hand since we've been setting them up for a while now. I'll meet you by the fried chicken stand in one hour, okay?"

Jareth tossed something to Sarah, which she caught on the tips of her fingers. Sarah looked down at what it was— an hour glass that was already slowly dropping grains of sand into the bottom half. "Jareth, wha-" Sarah looked up, but the Goblin King was already gone. Sarah grabbed the chord and slipped it around her neck before she tucked the tiny hour glass beneath her shirt.

* * *

><p>Gabrielle was having the time of her life at the festival. Even though the students had been told that they needed to wear their uniforms, since Gabrielle wasn't involved in any school-sanctioned clubs, she felt as if it would be okay to walk around the festival in regular clothes. Daphne and Una trailed along after her, also out of uniform.<p>

"Oh gosh, I shouldn't have eaten that last churro," Una said as she clutched at her stomach. "I feel so fat."

"Shut up, you're like a twig," Daphne said quickly to the red-headed Aussie. "You're the absolute last person on earth who needs to go on a diet."

"I appreciate the sentiment, but I'm trying to lose a couple of pounds before the Winter Formal," Una said. "I want to be down an entire dress size by then."

"Girl, girls!" Gabrielle exclaimed, and Daphne and Una stopped in their tracks. "Check out that hottie over by the fried chicken stand!" The two girls looked in the direction that their leader had indicated, and gasped at the sight of a blond hottie leaning against the stand and looking around the fair with disinterest.

"Oh my god, Gabrielle!" Daphne exclaimed. "He is totally… smoking! You need to march yourself over there and ask him to the Winter Formal!"

"He looks a bit older," Una pointed out as the three girls pushed their way through the crowds. "Do you think that he's a college student?"

"He'd better be! I'll be the complete envy of everybody at St. Agnes when I bring a university boy to the dance!" Gabrielle said and flipped her blonde curls, but whacked the person standing behind her with her hair. Gabrielle, flanked by her two friends, walked up to the blond man. "Hello, Gabrielle Ferriera," she introduced herself as she held out her hand.

"Not interested, move along, blondie," the man said.

"Um, excuse me?" Gabrielle said. The man peered around Gabrielle like he was looking for somebody. "Maybe I didn't make myself clear. I'm Gabrielle Ferriera."

"So you said," the man said. And he finally glanced down at Gabrielle. The blonde girl was used to boys and men alike completely adoring her, so it was unusual for Gabrielle to be on the receiving end of such a hate-filled stare.

"Ferriera, as in Ferriera-" Gabrielle started.

"Sarah, there you are!" Jareth exclaimed. Gabrielle flinched as Jareth brushed past her and went over to the brunette, who only gave Jareth a sour look.

"Jareth, that hour glass that you gave me started to burn!" Sarah whispered to the Goblin King. "Look at this!" She parted her uniform shirt slightly to show a red mark on her chest. "I have to be on stage in a couple of hours! What are you going to do about this?"

"Do you want me to kiss it and make it better?" Jareth asked in a low, sultry voice.

"Absolutely not, you pervert!" Sarah hissed as she drew back from the Goblin King.

"Um, excuse me? Sarah?" Gabrielle said as she walked up to where Sarah and Jareth were talking. "I was talking to this man when you so rudely interrupted us."

"Um, no," Jareth said with a frown. "You were talking to me, but I sure wasn't listening to anything that you were saying. And as I seem to recall, I walked away from you to join Sarah." Jareth slid his arm around Sarah's waist.

Sarah forced out a laugh and pulled Jareth down to her. "What do you think that you're doing?" she whispered into his ear.

"Knocking Ms. Ferriera down a peg or two, precious. Just follow my lead," Jareth replied, his breath hot against her ear.

"Why exactly would you want a meek little nobody like Sarah Williams when you can have somebody like me?"

"Excuse me?" Jareth said as he rounded on Gabrielle. "You do realize that my girlfriend is literally right here." Jareth's mismatched eyes swept up and down Gabrielle before Jareth sneered at her. "My home has sewer rats that are nicer to look at than you are. Come on, precious. Let's go take a look at that burn." Jareth lead Sarah away. "Oh, and Ms. Ferriera?"

"Yeah?"

"You might want to tone down the eyeliner a bit. You're wearing more than I am."

"Daphne?" Gabrielle asked as she dug through her purse to find her mirror.

"Yes, Gabby?"

"What's the play schedule for the rest of the day?" Gabrielle asked as she found the mirror and looked at her eyes in them. "Do you think that I'm wearing too much eyeliner?"

* * *

><p>"I don't want anything more to do with your stupid magic objects!" Sarah hissed from behind the curtain in the dressing room. "That really hurt, you know?"<p>

"I'm sorry, precious. I only wanted it as a reminder that you were going to meet me," Jareth said with a frown. "I'd completely forgotten that human skin is different than Fae skin. Please forgive me, precious. I'll do anything so long as you say that you forgive me."

"Well, it was nice to see the look on Gabrielle's face when you said that I was your girlfriend," Sarah said with a slight giggle. She came out from behind the curtain where she'd been changing and spun around in her simple, blue dress. "What do you think?"

"It's… too simple for you. I'm honestly a little surprised that you weren't in Romeo and Juliet, precious."

"That's much too complex and it's not nearly as nice as people seem to think," Sarah said with a scowl.

"What are you doing again?"

"Sound of Music."

"For here you are, standing there, loving me, whether or not you should…" Jareth sang as he took Sarah's hands between his own.

"Oh, shut up, you big baby," Sarah said as she pulled away from him.

"Oh, come on! Why does he have a better singing voice than I do?" said the boy from St. Peter's, the boy's school a few blocks away from St. Agnes, who would be playing the Captain in the play.

"Probably because your voice still cracks?" Sarah said. "Sorry." The boy simply shrugged and went to get changed.

"I'm going to go make sure that I have the best seat in the house. I'll see you after the show, precious?"

"Yes, alright. There's still plenty of festival to show you, after all," Sarah agreed with a shy smile.

* * *

><p>The plays that the students were putting on were not the full-length plays, but rather, samplings from the most famous parts, for the parents and festival goers to get a taste for what the students could preform. The first sampling of Sound of Music was Sarah and the other students preforming "Do Re Mi".<p>

"Let's start at the beginning, a very good place to start!" Sarah said to the "children" gathered around her. As Sarah started to sing and explain to the "children", Jareth caught a glimpse of movement up in the rafters above his head. His attention for small movements was more finely tuned than any humans, not only because he was Fae, but also because goblins were sneaky, tricky creatures who were always up to some mischief or another.

However, the dark-clad figures up in the rafters were no subjects of Jareth's, but rather, Gabrielle, Daphne, and Una. He frowned and wondered what they were up to, and that's when he saw Una hand Gabrielle a can of paint.

"Doe, a deer, a female dear! Ray, a drop of golden sun!"

A simple wave of Jareth's fingers sent the three girls crashing from the rafters. The bucket of paint dropped, but not over any of the actors on stage. Everybody surged to their feet as the three girls quickly became entangled in the ropes that held many different props for the other play samplings in the air.

Gabrielle started to yowl like an injured cat.

"Ms. Ferriera!" Sister Mary barked as she jumped up onto the stage. "Just what exactly do you think that you're doing?!"

* * *

><p>"I don't suppose that you had anything to do with Gabrielle's unfortunate slip, would you?" Sarah asked. She and Jareth were walking around the brightly lit festival and were enjoying some ice-cream.<p>

"It's not my fault that she slipped and fell," Jareth said simply. "Those with poor balance should not take jobs working in the rafters, after all." Sarah gave him the stink-eye and he simply shrugged. "Precious, it was throughly enjoyable to be able to spend the day with you in your own world. I think that maybe it's one thing for me to study your world from afar, but it's a whole other story to be able to interact with humans who aren't you and your family."

Sarah gave him a worried look. "Jareth, please don't say that you're going to come bother me at school more frequently."

"Worried are we, precious?"

"A little, yes."

"Don't worry; I have a deep-seeded respect for education, and I won't bother you while you are at school. However, I think that I cannot promise the same once the school day has ended. Ooh, ring toss. How quaint."

"You aren't supposed to use magic."

"But where's the fun in that, precious?"


	5. Night at the Museum

In this chapter, Jareth does a bit of gender bending, and I use the gendered pronouns rather freely after his (temporary) switch. As well as his name. Jareth = Judy.

This has not been proof read, so if you spot any grammatical errors, please let me know!

* * *

><p>"This is so completely childish. I'm not doing this," Gabrielle complained as she crossed her arms over her ample chest.<p>

"Very well, Ms. Ferriera," Sister Patrica said slowly as she stalked closer to the pouting teen. "In lieu of you attending the museum shut-in, you will be expected to write up at least one page for every single one of the exhibits that we will be discussing on our extended field-trip."

"Oh my go-"

"Watch yourself, young lady, unless you want to have to do two pages per exhibit."

"You can't be serious! There's like a thousand exhibits at the museum! There's no way that I'm going to do a thousand page report!" Gabrielle protested.

"Then I'll be seeing you at the museum next Friday afternoon," Sister Patrica said with a grin. Sarah hid a laugh behind her hand.

* * *

><p>Sarah followed her classmates into the museum, her overnight bag hung across her bag and with her sleeping bag in hand. "Okay ladies! We're going to be sleeping in the dinosaur exhibit tonight!" the museum guide said as she lead the girls into the room in question. "I hope that nobody's afraid of some old bones!"<p>

Sarah set her things down next to where Frankie and Iskra already had their sleeping bags rolled out on the floor next to one giant claw of the T-rex. "Pst! Pst!" Sarah straightened up and looked around the museum. Her classmates were happily setting up their sleeping bags for later, and chatting with their friends while they waited for the museum guides to take them on the private, guided tour of the museum. "Pst! Precious!"

Sarah closed her eyes and started to rub the bridge of her nose. "I'm going to count to ten and open my eyes and when I do so, you'd better be back in your own kingdom, Jareth," she muttered under her breath; she knew that Jareth would be able to hear her. When she opened her eyes, a mismatched pair of eyes stared back at her from one of the giant claws of the T-rex.

"Precious, you didn't think that I would just let you skip off and have a delightful night without me, did you?" Jareth asked.

"Go away," Sarah said through clenched teeth.

"No way, precious! You pretty much gave up your right to privacy the moment that we made that vow."

"Blue group! To me!" called one of the museum guides. Sarah spun around on her heels and marched over where the guide stood without another word to Jareth.

"Oh, this is going to be so much fun!" somebody exclaimed and leaned heavily on Sarah's left shoulder.

"Um, do I kno-" Sarah started, and then stared with slack-jawed horror at the young woman who stood next to her. It was like somebody had cut out Jareth's face and pasted it onto the body of a teenage girl.

"Just call me Jerusha Abbott (1)!" female Jareth exclaimed.

"You can't use that name!" Sarah hissed at him/her.

"Aw, why not? I love Judy's and Jarvis's love," Jareth said with a pout. "Fine, but you still have to call me Judy."

"I am not happy with you being here at all, and I'm sure as heck not going to call you Judy! You're such a pain!" Sarah said. She let out an annoyed humph and moved to stand closer to the guide.

"Okay, are we all set to go?" the museum guide asked. She consulted a clipboard with the names of everybody in her group. "Wait a second, we've got an extra." The girls looked around at each other to try and figure out who didn't belong.

"Wait, who are you?" one girl asked Jareth.

"Judy Abbott, obviously!" Jareth said and tossed his blonde hair over his shoulder. "There was a last minute group change."

"Um… okay. Well, we need to start on the tour right now if we're going to make it in time for the movie, so you guys can sort this out with one of the Sisters later, okay?" Sarah fumed as she followed in the footsteps of the tour guide, but the Museum of Natural History was one of her favorite places, so she tried not to let Jareth ruin her good mood. After they'd gone through the dinosaur exhibit and into the pilgrim exhibit, Sarah had even managed to forget that Jareth was even there in the first place.

"Eeek! That portrait just winked at me!" one of the girls in Sarah's group exclaimed.

"Don't be silly, it's just… OH MY GOSH! Did anybody else see that just now?!"

"What, what?!" the other girls in the group exclaimed. Before Sarah knew what was happening, everybody was pressed around the portrait except for Sarah, Judy, and the guide.

"Girls, girls! I promise you that the picture did not wink, blow a raspberry, or in any other way move!" The guide had to yell in order to be heard over the squealing voices of the girls. After a couple of minutes, the guide managed to get everybody under control, and they started to move on from the pilgrim exhibit.

"So, precious," Judy said as she came up next to Sarah and draped her arm over Sarah's shoulder. "Are you having fun yet?"

"No!" Sarah said and shrugged the Goblin King off. "I came here to learn, and you're just causing a massive distraction! We didn't even finish going through the pilgrim exhibit!"

"Oh, come on, precious!" Judy said with a roll of her eyes. "How many times have you been here before? Hundreds? Thousands?" Sarah only just continued to scowl at the King turned school girl. "Look, what I'm saying is that you know all of the exhibits here backwards and forwards. Besides, it's after 4 PM on a Friday! You made me promise not to bother you while you were at school, but you're not at school anymore!"

"It's a field trip!" Sarah snapped at him. "It's an extension of school!" Judy gave Sarah a dry look.

"And you're seriously telling me that you're willing— neigh, HAPPY even— to give up the rest of your Friday as well as half of your Saturday?"

"Yes! It's interesting and a change from the normal!"

"And what exactly are the weekends that you spend with me, precious? Chopped liver?"

"Oh, quit being such a baby, Jareth!" Sarah snapped and then gave the girl a side-glance. "Judy."

"Well, maybe I will be good, Sarah," Judy said with a scowl. Sarah quickly looked over to the blonde with a look of pure surprise on her face. "After all, I wouldn't want to make you angry at me. Besides, I have bigger things planned than just bringing to life overly perverted and overly childish paintings." With a faint hint of glitter, Judy vanished, but Sarah was in no way appeased by what passed for a truce.

After all, that did not sound like Jareth was going to stop his games at all.

* * *

><p>The rest of the tour passed without further incident, and by the time that the guide started to usher the girls downstairs where they'd have their dinner, the girls were even starting to talk about how they might have imagined the entire incident with the paintings in the pilgrim exhibit.<p>

Sarah laughed along with her peers to put on a grand show as she followed everybody to the three-story staircase that would take them directly to the lobby. But a second later, the air was filled with horrified shrieks. Sarah ran over to the balcony and looked down— the stairs had turned into a giant slide and both students and nuns were sliding down it with mixed reactions of horror and glee.

"Jareth," Sarah said through clenched teeth. A moment later, Judy reappeared at Sarah's side.

"I told you that I had bigger things planned tonight, didn't I, precious?" Judy asked with a wink.

"Wha… What is this? What's happening to my museum?!" the curator was screaming in the middle of the lobby amongst those who had slid down the giant slide.

"Come on, Sarah!" Judy exclaimed as he pulled the girl over to the top of the slide. "I did this for you! You need to learn how to loosen up every once in a while!"

"Jareth, wait! WAIT!" Sarah screamed. Judy pulled the two of them down onto the slide, and Sarah let out an ear-piercing scream and clung to the girl the entire ride down. Once they reached the bottom, Sarah had expected to come to a stop, but apparently, the overly-polished marble floors made for an extension of the slide, and the two of them barreled into a group of Sarah's classmates that were just getting to their feet before they came to a stop at the feet of the Mother Superior.

Sarah looked up at the Mother with pure terror. She was probably the only person on earth who was older than Jareth. But after a long, drawn out moment in which Sarah died a thousand times, the Mother finally smiled brightly at the two girls before her on the floor. "Me next!" And then she picked up the hem of her habit and hurried over to the elevator.

Sarah threw back her head and let out a laugh that quickly turned into a sob. Judy stood and helped Sarah to her feet. "See? Everybody needs time off every once in a while." Judy said.

* * *

><p>After about an hour, all of the girls and nuns had tired themselves out on the slide, and went outside to their overly-delayed dinner, which had grown a little bit cold. Judy sat pressed next to Sarah on the picnic bench and laughed and joked with Frankie and Iskra like they'd known each other their entire lives.<p>

As everybody started to head back into the museum for the behind the scenes part of the tour, Frankie pulled Sarah aside. "Okay, I'm not going to say anything bad about Judy because I really like her and everything… but it's a little weird how I've literally never seen her before now and she just starts to talk about things that she was never privy to. Like what happened on our first day of school."

"But Judy was there," Sarah said with a frown. "After I ran out from the cafeteria, I went to a bathroom on the other side of the school, and Judy was in there. She comforted me."

"Does she just enjoy hanging out in the bathrooms all day or something?"

"No, she just… keeps to herself, that's all. She's awkward and doesn't know how to deal with people that aren't me," Sarah said quickly. Frankie gave Sarah a look of disbelief, but then rushed inside and over to her own group.

"So, she's suspicious, but thanks to your quick thinking, precious, she's not going to bring it up again for the rest of the field trip," Judy said as he hung off of Sarah's arm.

Much to Sarah's surprise, Jareth did not transform the staircase down into the basement into a slide, nor did he make any of the paintings start to talk or make the artifacts start to dance or any of a million other options that Sarah would have thought he would have done. Instead, he remained by her side while the guides told them about the things that the museum was studying before they put them upstairs on display.

"That was fun," Judy said as she and Sarah walked back upstairs. "I didn't know that there was so much history to be learned from bones even that old. It sort of makes me wonder what humans would think about my bones should I die here."

"No, don't die, Jareth," Sarah said with a pout.

"Aw, are you worried about me, precious?" Judy asked with a sly smile. "Well, not to worry, because you won't be able to get rid of me that easily!" He leaned over and pecked Sarah's cheek before he skipped off and vanished.

The second that the Goblin King vanished was when the screaming started. "Oh lord, what now?" Sarah muttered under her breath. The entire museum seemed to shake around her, and Sarah watched with wide-eyed horror as the once-still skeletal remains of the T-rex came charging around the corner. It barreled right towards her— Sarah knew that she had to get out of the way or else she'd be flattened by the massive feet, but she was glued to the spot by fear.

Sarah closed her eyes and a second before it would have run her down, the T-rex stopped and let out a fierce roar that flung Sarah's hair and clothes back. Something wet smacked against her forehead and fell to the ground with a plop.

Sarah cautiously peeked open first one eye, and then opened the other when she realized that the skeleton obviously had no desire to kill her. She tentatively reached up to wipe whatever goop was on her forehead off— it was booger green and had the consistency of glue— before she looked down to see what had hit her: a tennis ball that was covered in the same green goop.

With confusion, Sarah bent down and picked the ball up with the tips of her thumb and pinky. The t-rex hunkered down low on its hind legs and frantically wagged its tail back and forth. It was a pose that Sarah had seen Merlin do many, many times before.

"You want the ball boy?" Sarah asked as she tossed the ball from hand to hand. Even though the scull no longer had eyes, Sarah could tell that the thing was eagerly watching the ball. "Well go get it!" Sarah threw the ball as hard as she could against the far corner, where it bounced off and could be heard bouncing into the lobby of the museum.

As Sarah had expected, the t-rex turned and scrambled after the ball like a giant dog. Sarah and the others who'd been behind her in the hall hurried into the lobby, where most everybody was frozen in fear and pressed up against the wall. The dinosaur had caught the ball and was easily turning it into shreds in the middle of the room. But, when Sarah came in, the t-rex scrambled to its feet and dropped the remains of the ball at Sarah's feet. "Who's a good boy? Who's a good boy?" Sarah asked as she rubbed the dinosaur's scull. If the thing had a tongue, it would have lulled out in pleasure.

"How did you know that it wasn't going to hurt you, Sarah?" Frankie asked as she edged closer to the t-rex.

"I didn't," Sarah said honestly. "But I saw the ball and I thought that it was acting an awful lot like my own dog."

"Too bad that it destroyed that ball," Iskra said as the other students hesitantly began to approach the creature.

"Then I suppose that it's a good thing that I have plenty of spares!" Judy said. She opened up an overnight bag and dozens of brand new tennis balls came spilling out.

The girls started to pick up the balls that rolled across the floor, and the dinosaur didn't know which way to turn.

Everybody spent several hours tossing ball after ball for the skeleton to catch— they quickly found out that he could fit at least a hundred in his massive jaw, so several people would throw their balls all at the same time.

Some time after midnight, the t-rex went back to the stand that it had been on originally, curled up like a dog and fell fast asleep. Exhausted from first the slide and then playing fetch with the dinosaur, everybody drifted off to their own sleeping bags and the room was soon filled with the sounds of snores.

"That was a lot more fun than I thought that it would ever be," Sarah whispered to Judy, who lay next to Sarah in her own sleeping bag.

"I told you, precious," Judy said and stuck out her tongue. "You need to learn to trust me more. Even stuffy old Mother Superiors like to cut loose every once in a while. It's good for one's mental health."

"Yes, yes, okay. But what happens in the morning? Will everybody just forget?"

"Of course, precious," Judy said. She reached out and grabbed Sarah's hand and cupped it to her chest. "Do you really think that I'd just let people walk around thinking that the Museum of Natural History has a button to turn the main staircase into a giant slide and the technology to turn a bunch of bones into a living creature?"

"No, of course not," Sarah said softly. "I'm beat."

"Yes, you've had quite an eventful evening. Sleep now."

* * *

><p>Sarah was awoken by the sounds of the other girls as they awoke. She lay on her back for a moment and stared up at the scull of the t-rex, which was exactly as it had been when they'd first gotten to the museum.<p>

"Man, I had the strangest dream last night!" Frankie said as she sat up in her sleeping bag.

"Me too!" Iskra exclaimed. Sarah could only laugh.

* * *

><p>1) Jerusha Abbott is the main character in the novel Daddy Long Legs. After Jerusha goes to college, she changes her name to Judy.<p> 


End file.
